adventures in my weekending

Kicking off the weekend festivities on Thursday, I attended a benefit at the House of Blues for the Pediatric Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at UH Rainbow Babies and Children's Hospital for the 1st Annual Save a Child, Save a Smile fundraiser organized by a friend.

friends at event

co-chair and friend Meredith

On Friday, I had no real plans set because I was prepared to be up early the following day to prepare brunch for my aunts at my apartment and this is typically how my most fun and random nights come about.

I joined friends at the Greenhouse Tavern for impromptu dinner and drinks to enjoy the beautiful weather for as long as it lasted.

smile! check out Nic's stylish little curl

french 75 "it's patio season biatches" is the name of the game

I headed down the street and joined friends for a quick stop in Flannery's to catch up and see the fireworks from the Indians' stadium then walked a bit farther to meet the three amigos at Thirsty Parrot post game.

Anndddddddd, here is about when things got a bit more random because we ended up on W. 6th and sort of did a quick bar crawl to pick up a credit card at Liquid, which we never even picked up and then headed into Bar Louie where I was one of 3 girls in the whole place. Ladies - apparently it's a hot spot for guys on Friday night.

the boys insisted on shots - salty pretzel fyi

dance party in the car

We continued our crawl to Ohio city for a beer stop into Market and then the boys needed onnnnnnneeeee more stop to "dance" in Speakeasy.

Good thing I didn't leave earlier because these boys saved their best performances for last - who knew they could dance like the Jersey Shore to a dub step remix?

photo really doesn't do his dancing justice

On Saturday, I was up soooooo early to get ready to host brunch with my aunts for the afternoon. Let's be honest here - I don't really cook or bake a lot. For all you doubters out there, it's not that I can't bake or cook, it's just that I'm surrounded by so many good restaurants, it's only me and cooking for one isn't that much fun.

I whipped up a fresh fruit salad with lime juice/sugar drizzle, a baked french toast from the one and only Pioneer Woman and sausage and broccoli egg muffins with mimosas. We were too busy catching up and sharing stories that I didn't snap a single picture of the final product but based on the empty plates below, you know it was a hit!

who doesn't love mimosas?

While I didn't watch anything related to the derby (but really want to go one year and wear the largest hat ever, so large that people have to move out of my way as I walk by them), I did join two friends for a Cinco de Mayo celebration with Skinnygirl, guacamole and shrimp fajitas.

of course swedish fish go with cinco de mayo

On Sunday, I headed to Rocky River to run a daunting 12 miles to prepare for the Cleveland Half Marathon in two weeks. Before this, I had only ran 8 miles at about a 10 minute pace. Two things - that's not fast and really not that far seeing as I had to add another 5 miles fairly quickly. My trusty running partner Melissa and I headed out on the trails, conquered the bitch of a hill and dodged the large group of leisurely cyclists several times.

Post run, we rewarded ourselves with mimosas and a delicious brunch at Burntwood Tavern, where the three of us plotted out our reality TV show with characters and we added in cameos from my parents because we really think they add a hilarious voice of reason to a dysfunctional show.

Allison is a 30 year-old young professional living in downtown Cleveland. Lover of all things fashion, sparkles, pop culture and dirty martinis with blue cheese stuffed olives who speaks at a very fast rate with a slight Cleveland accent.